Category Archives: Skyrim

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Relive 11.11.11 with launch photos from around the globe — in London, Helsinki, Milan, and even Maryland. Both before midnight and at lunch time the next day, members of Bethesda Game Studios visited our local GameStop in Rockville. Pictured above (clockwise from left) are Craig Lafferty, Dave Schreiber, Tim Lamb, and Mark Lampert.

If you haven’t watched Giant Bomb’s highly-entertaining quick look for Skyrim, watch the embedded video above. I’ve gone ahead and set it to the 28:45 mark, so you can catch the clip I’ve been watching over and over.

Stuff.co.nz (9.5/10) — “… without any shadow of doubt, the best RPG experience available right now.”

Now Gamer(93%) — “Building upon everything that made Oblivion such a joy, Skyrim has easily secured the crown as the biggest game this gen and also as one of the best. Even if you don’t ordinarily like ye olde fantasy RPGs, this is brilliant.”

It seems like only yesterday we were first teasing Skyrim at the 2010 VGAs. Now we’re hours away from the game being available globally!As folks in North America countdown the final hours, check out all the new coverage up today…

And if that’s not enough, check out the numerous reviews posted for the game.

Shacknews — “I simply fell in love with the world of Skyrim, and I plan to lose myself in it for some time to come.”

PC Gamer (94/100) — “It’s the best open world game I’ve ever played, the most liberating RPG I’ve ever played, and one of my favourite places in this or any other world.”

Joystiq (5/5) — “This is the deepest, loveliest world ever created for a single player to explore, and one that no one should deny themselves.”

G4TV (5/5) — “Skyrim offers the single most impressive gaming landscape I have ever seen, not just in its scope, but in the variety and detail, a truly monumental achievement that allows for sublime absorption of the player in its verisimilitude.”

USA Today (4/4) — “Even when you think you’ve spent hundreds of hours exploring, there’s always one more fresh face to meet, or dragon to slay, or thrilling adventure waiting.”

Associated Press (4/4) — “Skyrim has taken over my life. But, hey, it’s a good life.”

Destructoid(10/10) — “Submit you will, for The Elder Scrolls V is the new zenith of role-playing games and it commands you to look up.”

NZ Gamer (9.5/10) — “Playing Skyrim is like getting lost in a massive series of fantasy novels, only this time you’re writing them yourself.”

Machinima (9.5/10) — “Quit your job. Divorce your spouse. Give your children up for adoption. Do whatever you need to do to find the time to play Skyrim.”

Giant Bomb (5/5) — “The sheer amount of content packed into the game is a true marvel of video game production; it’s even more marvelous that all of it is so well executed that you want to see and do everything, and better still that you’re free to play it all in whatever way you want.”

One of the most impressive aspects of Skyrim is its three-dimensional world map. Access it in the game, and you’re transported to the heavens, peering down at the landscape you’re still standing on. From here, you can view locations you’ve found or cleared, as well as hold capitals. But early on in the creation of the guide, I realized we’d have to create an entire world map completely from scratch. This was the point when terror set in.

Fortunately, our map makers (the good folks at 99 Lives studio, with over 20 years of map-making experience) decided they didn’t need much of a summer, and stitched together every single section of the game world from about 20 feet off the ground; resulting in a messy, but workable tapestry of landscapes. While I spent my evenings checking, plotting, and referencing all the topography and locations, our cartographers painstakingly transformed the map into a gigantic, useable, and highly accurate representation of the Province of Skyrim itself. This is a map you’ll find exclusively in the guide, online map tool, and iPad app. But just how much detail is there?

Learn about some of the things you’ll find while exploring Skyrim’s massive landscape, and see how Bethesda artists upped their game in over three years of dedicated work. Head over there now to check it out.

You can also listen to the third developer podcast separately in the regular places:

Alongside Skyrim’s release, you’ll also be able to purchase the mammoth-sized, 656-page (in full color) game guide from Prima. To learn about the guide’s contents, here’s the guide’s co-author, David Hodgson…

Overview. The Sky’s the Limit

Work began on the official guide in early May, when I commenced an overwhelming trek into every frigid corner of Skyrim. Initially, I was thinking this would be a similar experience to my work on the Fallout 3 guide. But then phrases like “even more epic” and “five times the size” were whispered to me. More than five months, close to 2,000 man-hours of work (between myself and co-author Steve Stratton), several thousand cups of tea and packets of Monster Munch later, and with a massive support structure from both Bethesda and Prima, the guide is complete.